The PrisonerReview

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Is this number worth watching?

By Scott Collura

For the purposes of this review, we'll put aside the first and obvious question of why Patrick McGoohan's classic, revered and cult favorite 1960s mind-trip series The Prisoner should be remade. For, in fact, it has been remade as a miniseries by AMC and starring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen. This new and expansive, if certainly not better, The Prisoner begins airing tonight. So while we'll accept that the unnecessary has been made necessary by AMC, there is still no getting around the fact that the new series winds up feeling as if it's, much like its title character, a prisoner of its own past.

In the original 17-episode show, McGoohan (who was a chief creative force behind the series) starred as a nameless British spy who, upon resigning from his post, is promptly kidnapped, only to awaken in the mysterious Village, a permanent vacation camp for wayward intelligence agents that preceded the likes of Twin Peaks and Lost by a few decades in terms of its mystery and surrealism. There, McGoohan -- dubbed Number Six by his overseers -- battled the powers that be as they attempted to drain him of his precious spy secrets, even as he (and the audience) tried to figure out if it was his former Iron Curtain foes, or perhaps his old bosses, who had made him into a Prisoner.

The new series, which runs six episodes (two per night over the next three nights), of course jettisons the Cold War analogy in favor of a more modern -- if equally obvious -- Truman Show/reality TV/Twitter voyeurism theme. Caviezel is the new Number Six, not a super-spy like his predecessor but instead a middle-management intelligence-agency office drone whose specialty is the collection of data. This is done, apparently, by watching people in even their most intimate of moments, a task which drives Number Six to resignation, and sure enough, the Village.

McKellen is Number Two, the man who runs the show in the Village and Number Six's chief tormentor. He wants Six to accept his new life in this strange anti-oasis in the desert, just as he's unwilling to acknowledge that the Village's newest resident ever had an old life. This is where the new show departs from the old, as we learn that the Village's residents aren't necessarily retired spies but instead apparent ordinary folk with no knowledge of the outside world. The Village is the be all and end all of existence for them, and Number Six's greatest fear is that he will forget his true life as well as he is subjugated by Two's manipulations.

Jim Caviezel is The Prisoner.

Two's role is greatly expanded from the old show's, where he was frequently replaced by new Twos (and actors) after failing against Six in each episode's battle of wits. And McKellen's presence certainly brings gravity -- and some dark humor -- to the proceedings, but Caviezel is such a dreary and pessimistic force in the lead role that viewing the new Prisoner often feels like a chore, as if we the audience are also trying our hardest to just get out of the Village as soon as possible.

The mini is also an occasionally off-putting affair because of its tendency to play havoc with its narrative timeline. Oftentimes we flash forward, then back, then forward again with Caviezel, barely able to keep up with where we are in Six's saga. The point, of course, is to illustrate the character's own existentialist drama -- as in the original show -- as he veers dangerously towards losing himself to the Village and actually becoming Number Six. But for the audience this is too often disorienting and gimmicky, like an acid trip that goes on for much too long, during which you're surrounded by people who are kind of boring.

Which isn't to say that the original The Prisoner always made sense. The final episode was the TV equivalent of an acid trip to end all TV equivalents of acid trips, but it was fun and weird and different (and presumably new in 1967). The new Prisoner, ultimately, isn't. And a few of the original's most dated elements have made the transition here, oddly enough, like that life-snuffing giant white bubble from hell.

Things get curiouser and curiouser as the series proceeds, but in the end The Prisoner makes the mistake that many of its head-trip brethren make: It doesn't satisfactorily answer the many questions it poses. By the time the viewer gets to episode five or so -- if they have the endurance to make it that far, that is -- there's really just one question going through your mind. "Where's a life-snuffing giant white bubble when you need one?"

The Prisoner airs over three nights -- November 15th, 16th and 17th -- on AMC.